Police Armored Vehicle Is Unwelcome in California College Town

DAVIS, Calif. — The police department of this modest college town is among the latest California beneficiaries of surplus military equipment: a $700,000 armored car that is the “perfect vehicle,” the police chief told the City Council, “to perform rescues of victims and potential victims during active shooter incidents.”

It is well maintained, low-mileage and free, the chief, Landy Black, said in explaining why the department had augmented its already sizable cache of surplus matériel, including rifles, body armor and riot helmets, with an MRAP: a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle.

But the City Council directed Chief Black last month to get rid of it in the face of an uproar that had swept through this community, with many invoking the use of similar equipment by the police against protesters in Ferguson, Mo., after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.

The vehicle, a behemoth in brown camouflage paint, is now parked out of sight in front of a steamroller in a gully next to a city garage; on a recent day, a lone pigeon cooed overhead.

“This thing has a turret — it’s the kind of thing that is used in Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Dan Wolk, the mayor. “Our community is the kind of community that is not going to take well to having this kind of vehicle. We are not a crime-ridden city.”

The mayor added: “When it comes to help from Washington we, like most communities, have a long wish list. But a tank, or MRAP, or whatever you choose to call it, is not on that list.”

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The Council’s decision set off waves of concern among police officials across the state and highlighted the fact that California — whose crime rate, like those of many other states, is on the decline — has one of the highest concentrations of surplus military equipment in the nation. That is perhaps not surprising for large cities like Los Angeles, but it is just as true in generally placid seaside getaways like Santa Barbara and here in this quiet community outside Sacramento.

Since 2006, police agencies in California have received 8,533 surplus assault weapons, shotguns and pistols, as well as 7,094 pieces of night-vision equipment, the highest allocation of any state in those categories, according to the Defense Department. Over that period, it also received 49 armored vehicles, with only Texas and Florida obtaining more; 59 helicopters and airplanes, second to Florida; 2,370 knives and bayonets, second to Texas; and 18 grenade launchers for tear gas and smoke grenades, trailing Florida and North Carolina.

The trend of putting such gear in the hands of police departments has raised concerns all around the country after the sight of police officers with armed vehicles and sniper rifles pointed at demonstrators in Ferguson. President Obama has called for a review of the military surplus program, with an eye toward curbing or canceling it. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is also planning hearings, and some members of Congress are talking about proposing legislation to limit the program.

At the City Council meeting in Davis where the vote took place, nearly 40 people spoke, and almost everyone urged the Council to return the MRAP. Council members were also deluged with emails.

The backlash worries some law enforcement officials.

“Some of the equipment that has been made available to departments has been a real savior,” said Christopher W. Boyd, president of the California Police Chiefs Association and chief of police in Citrus Heights, a quiet suburb of Sacramento. “All of this equipment is needed, and this makes obtaining such equipment affordable. Armored vehicles are extremely valuable. They are very expensive. Most police departments cannot afford to buy them.”

The concentration of military equipment in California reflects, in part, the long economic downturn over the past decade, which forced police departments and sheriff’s offices to contend with budget cuts at the very time that increasingly sophisticated crime-fighting equipment was coming on the market. The Defense Department’s surplus program, along with grants from the Department of Homeland Security to buy matériel, gave officials what was, at least until the vote in Davis, an irresistible opportunity.

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“This thing has a turret — it’s the kind of thing that is used in Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Dan Wolk, the mayor.CreditJim Wilson/The New York Times

“A number of agencies became very adept at finding what was available,” said Sheriff Bill Brown of Santa Barbara County, whose office used the program to stock up on helicopters. “And that word spread, and it spread at a time when all of our budgets had a tremendous strain on them because of the recession. It allowed departments that had been gutted to obtain the necessary equipment.”

It was also a bow to California’s history of violent and sometimes bizarre crimes pitting the police against criminals armed with military weapons.

Officials here trace the spike in interest among the California police to Feb. 28, 1997. That was the date of a bloody shootout in North Hollywood involving two robbers armed with an arsenal of high-powered automatic weaponry that outmatched the more conventional guns wielded by the police department at the time. The robbers were killed; 11 police officers and seven civilians were injured.

“The North Hollywood incident really was the catalyst that told us it was time to make sure that we armed our deputies in the field,” Sheriff Brown said. “If you are trying to address someone with a high-power rifle and all you have is a handgun with limited accuracy and range, it’s not a very sensible thing to do.”

But even before that, drug-fueled gang wars, particularly in Southern California, had prompted police departments to move toward militarization as they dealt with well-financed criminals armed with increasingly sophisticated arsenals.

“Southern California police departments have a history of being on the forefront of police militarization,” Peter B. Kraska, the chairman of the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, said in an email. “Not only is this true for the formation of SWAT teams — L.A.P.D. — but I found in my late-1990s research that that area also was heavily involved in being trained by active-duty military personnel and procuring military-style hardware.”

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The MRAP, a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle, now sits out of sight in Davis, Calif.CreditMax Whittaker for The New York Times

Even before Ferguson, the trend here had stirred concern.

“It’s time to recalibrate what the police are doing, what they have allowed to take over policing,” said Joseph D. McNamara, a former police chief in San Jose, Calif., and Kansas City, Mo., who is now a fellow at the Hoover Institution. “The facts are so overwhelming on the side of getting police back to the side that they are public servants and that you accept the risk. No one drafted you into police work.”

Davis waited two years to get its armored vehicle, Lt. Thomas W. Waltz said as he used both arms to pull open the huge driver’s-side door. The police chief was given 60 days to report back to the City Council on how to get rid of it.

Only one member of the Council, Brett Lee, voted against instructing the chief to return the equipment.

“I wasn’t sure whether we needed one or didn’t need one,” Mr. Lee said in an interview. “Let’s not just send it back until we’ve determined whether we need one or don’t need one.”

This community is particularly sensitive to perceptions of overaggressive policing. In 2011, campus police officers at the University of California, Davis, used pepper spray to put down a student demonstration, and a video of the event went viral. Mr. Wolk, the mayor, said the episode had made residents even more wary of the armored car.

That wariness is not isolated to Davis. Sheriff Brown of Santa Barbara County said there had been “a lot of misunderstanding about the program — in some quarters, even hysteria.”

“The reality is that this is a great program,” he said. “It provides law enforcement with a lot of very valuable equipment that in many instances — in fact, most instances — could not be obtained or afforded, and allows us to do a better job of protecting our citizens and our own public safety personnel.”

Correction:Sept. 13, 2014

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly in one instance to the vehicle that the City Council of Davis, Calif., has directed the police chief to get rid of. It is essentially a large, modified armored car, not a tank. The error was repeated in an earlier version of the headline.

Correction:Sept. 6, 2014

An earlier version of this article misstated, on second reference, the surname of Landy Black, the police chief of Davis, Calif. He is Chief Black, not Chief Landy.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 20 of the New York edition with the headline: Fit for Combat, but It’s No Match for a College Town. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe